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Cons:

A few weeks ago, we did an Out of the Box review of Heavenly Sword that was extremely critical of the game's framerate in addition to its reliance on hack and slash gimmickry. However, following further testing of genuine retail code, our stance on this game as a lackluster offering has softened. The slight improvement to performance has made a world of difference to Heavenly Sword and our second playthrough seemed decidedly more enjoyable.

Perfect Timing

While our initial impressions of Heavenly Sword left us unenthused, the improvement in framerate has since altered that perception. It's surprising how much difference there is between the early review build that we first ran through and the finished retail version, because although the framerate still chugs at points, it isn't the choppy slideshow that drew our ire the first time around.

The impact of the performance boost is clearly apparent in the combat, which originally seemed to be a mishmash of Square and Triangle button pushes. Rather than simply haphazardly mashing the face buttons, we were now able to discern enough of the timing of Nariko's moves so that putting together massive combos was not only possible but exhilarating as well.

We had mentioned that there was little incentive to engage in long strings of seamlessly brutal attacks, but thanks to Heavenly Sword's optimizations, we've found that performing combat moves fluidly and cleanly resulted in better payoffs in the form of the little golden medallions that are the game's currency. You are awarded these medallions at the end of each section of a chapter for the amount of devastation you were able to unleash in an unbroken combo, so the tightening up of the framerate lead to bigger gains in this arena.

In addition, the counterattack mechanics are significantly easier to execute when the game is running smoothly, so although you still have to wait for an enemy to attack Nariko in order to perform one of these maneuvers, you are at least granted a better chance of pulling it off should the opportunity arise. Still, the enemy AI seems every bit as dumb as it was in the early version (with dudes just standing around Nariko in a circle), but they seem to attack more frequently which makes a universe of difference in the number of chances you have to counter them.